Comments: It was an active year for Sun Chemical, as the company reported a solid year in 2017, with sales holding steady. Meanwhile, Sun Chemical is under new leadership in North America, and made some interesting acquisitions in key niche markets.

On the leadership front, Chris Parrilli took over as president of Sun Chemical North American Inks from Charles Murray in January 2018. Parrilli has been with Sun Chemical for 38 years and has been a corporate VP for 20 years, running the packaging, publication and industrial divisions at different times. Most recently, Parrilli was heading the packaging business. He noted that the company achieved its objectives for 2017.

“There are markets that continue to decline, but we maintained our market share, or picked up business in the case of commercial printing,” Parrilli said. “We certainly saw the impact of higher raw material costs, as we were unable to move prices up as fast as we would have liked.

“I like where we are positioned in terms of providing value,” he added. “We grew faster than the growth of the market in packaging. We saw really solid growth in 2017 in packaging, even though consolidation is fast and furious among the major packaging converters.”

Sun Chemical and its parent company, DIC Corporation, made a few acquisitions during the past year, picking up technology-rich companies.

In August 2017, they added Joules Angstrom U.V. Printing Inks Corp., a leading manufacturer of UV printing inks in the commercial, packaging and specialty markets. In November, they acquired the proprietary technology of a display solution now called SunMotion from Transitions Digital Graphics, LLC, a leader in creating changeable advertising signage and displays that utilize invisible ink.

In particular, Parrilli noted that the addition of Joules Angstrom will boost both companies’ UV offerings.

“Joules Angstrom has great UV technology, and the company has been very successful in the market,” Parrilli said. “Everything we heard about Joules Angstrom from the market was true. They are a very entrepreneurial team, and with the addition, we now have even stronger UV technical capabilities.”

The company has also been active on the R&D front. In one noteworthy addition, Sun Chemical introduced SunBeam Advance EB offset inks and SunCure Advance UV inks for primary and secondary food packaging. The company said that these new inks are compliant with the strictest global standards in the marketplace, including Nestlé food packaging requirements and the Swiss Ordinance.

Higher raw material prices, coupled with supply tightness and stricter environmental regulations among some suppliers, impacted the ink industry during the past year. In particular, titanium dioxide, pigments, feedstocks, carbon black, oils, monomers and solvents have been among those essential ingredients affected, and 2018 is expected to bring more of the same.

In the last few months, Sun Chemical increased prices on offset inks, coatings and consumables worldwide, as well as liquid inks and coatings for flexible packaging globally.

“There were increases we pushed through due to the concerns over titanium dioxide,” Parrilli observed. “Pigments out of China are under regulatory constraints. As we came to the end of 2017, we announced price increases across our entire portfolio. These are all efforts to catch up from the dynamics of the past 18 months, plus more escalating costs we anticipate coming.”

Parrilli sees opportunities ahead for Sun Chemical.

“Heatset is relatively stable, and you still see quite a bit of interest there,” he reported. “Coldset’s drop has been precipitous, and I don’t see that discontinuing. For Sun Chemical, it is about packaging and other channels to market. I think digital will have a bigger role to play in the next 10 years, as consumers will have a more targeted approach to what they are buying. We continue to grow our knowledge and expertise in packaging. Our large packaging customers are looking at how to improve their top and bottom line and are looking at how they can grow. The industrial side is an opportunity for new markets, and it is very exciting.

“In the coming year, I believe markets will be relatively stable, and we are looking for growth above the market level,” Parrilli added. “We want to drive value in what we are providing our customers. Unfortunately, we also expect raw material prices to continue to escalate, and that’s a challenge we’ll have to continue to monitor throughout the year.”

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